Sarah Rosedahl Books Review

Sarah Rosedahl is artist, author, and illustrator for Sloggers Rain Boots and Garden Shoes. She loves to draw and paint farm animals and birds. Living in Vermont on a small farm, she gets inspiration from wildlife and agriculture of Vermont's Lake Champlain Islands. She loves to paint in watercolor, acrylic, and mixed media. This is one very talented lady!

Sarah is also the author and artist behind the coloring books: Difficult Chickens, Difficult Sheep & Friends, and Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z, as well as the Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z book. These have such fun illustrations! I have admired her work on the Sloggers and love this set of books! The color books have pages printed on one side to prevent bleed through to the next page. Now you can get the newly redesigned covers! The interior illustrations all remain the same as before. I love the whimsical nature of the pictures. I have greatly enjoyed the fun and lighthearted details of these coloring book and love to put color to the pages. The pages are pretty enough to frame as well.

Orpington begins to take color in Difficult Chickens Color Book.

Difficult Chickens is an intricate coloring book that is inspired by the Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z books and Zentangle designs. These decorative pages are home to 26 breeds of chickens that are alphabetically organized from A-Z and two chicks. Since I keep my own chickens I have started collecting fanciful chicken things. This is a lovely addition to my collection.

Llama in the Difficult Sheep & Friends Color Book.

For the lover of ruminants, camelids, bovids, and more, Difficult Sheep & Friends is a fun, elaborate coloring book that has great appeal for all ages. I especially love the whimsical interpretations of all these neat animals. This includes 26 sheep and fiber-producing animals that are friends of the fiber arts trade. I love all things yarn myself and I have two llamas! Sheep breeds include: Border Leicester, Cheviot, Icelandic, Lincoln, Merino, Oxford Down, Rough Fell, Rambouillet, Scottish Blackface, and Shetland. Friends include: Alpaca, Angora Rabbits, Angora Goat, Bison, Bactrian Camel, Cashmere Goat, Highland Cow, Horse, Llama, Muskox, Old English Sheepdog, Pygora Goat, Vicuna and Yak. Great for adult coloring enthusiasts everywhere.

Orpingon to color in the Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z Coloring Book.

  
Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z Coloring Book is a great addition to the set. It has 40 pages of chicken breeds, decorative chickens, friends and foes to color. These are mostly the outlines of the chickens and other critters. It shows a picture and specific breed or animal name on most pages. Although there are a few with designs on them, these are certainly not as intricate as the Difficult Chickens book. I love how you can either match the colors to the actual breed, design your own chicken or other animal with Zentangle art, or just color the animals how you want. The sky's the limit. Great for chicken lovers everywhere!

Zari found the Orpington in the Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z book.

Chickens! Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z is a great children's book. It has pretty colorful illustrations that are accompanied by the breed of the chicken and fun facts about them. Some of these fun water-colored illustrations are the same as the ones on the Sloggers Rain Boots and Garden Shoes. I was eggstatic to get this book and I love to look at the many different varieties. Some are even rare breeds! So pretty! My favorite has to be the Orpington because we have a Buff Orpington that we named Buffy and she is one of my daughter's favorite chickens out of our 11.

Zari with our Buff Orpington March 2016 when she was a chick.

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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received these books for free to facilitate this review. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.

Middlebury Interactive Languages Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 Review

My family had the privilege of trying the Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 from Middlebury Interactive Languages for this review to use in conjunction with our own homeschool curriculum. This is a Homeschool Review Crew Review. All opinions expressed are my own or those of my family.

Middlebury Interactive Languages offers online world language courses for students in a classroom setting or homeschool. They offer courses in Spanish, French, Chinese and German in elementary, middle and high school. Course levels range from introductory through advanced. These courses are for one student to do and are yearly subscriptions that go a semester (about 6 months) at a time. Each semester for Middle School & High School consists of 18 weeks (90 days) of content. Each semester for grades K-2 consists of 35 days of content. Each semester for grades 3-5 consists of 45 days of content.

Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 is one of the courses from Middlebury Interactive Languages. Other than Spanish they have Chinese and French for grades K-2. Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 has twelve units total. Units one through five and seven through eleven have six lessons each. Units 6 and 12 are review for previous lessons. When your student finishes an activity it will automatically check mark it to show you where your student is in the program and what activities have been completed. There are Authentic Stories, Course Vocabulary (in both Spanish and English) & Songs and Translations as PDF files to download and print out. The lessons consist of: an introduction, parts to explore, warm ups, practices, speaking labs (these need a microphone), stories, find and color, review, where is/which has, coloring pages (to download and print), culture, songs, worksheets (to download and print), vocabulary, unit summaries, and quizzes & tests. Some lessons have places to click, drag and drop, interactive videos, videos to watch, and click to listen activities. There are places where the child can click to hear what is being asked or said. This is wonderful if the child doesn't read yet. If you start from the Home/Dashboard instead of the Table of Contents you can continue the course from where your student left off and see where your student is supposed to be in the course.

Above: Table of Contents, Below: Home/Dashboard (notice check marks indicating finished work)

  
Contents of Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2:

• Unit 1: Greetings
• Unit 2: Numbers
• Unit 3: Family
• Unit 4: Colors
• Unit 5: School
• Unit 6: Review of 1-5
• Unit 7: Body
• Unit 8: Animals
• Unit 9: Calendar
• Unit 10: Food
• Unit 11: Descriptions
• Unit 12: Review of 7-11

Zari watching Las manchas del ocelote for learning greetings in Spanish.

How We Used This and Our Thoughts:
The Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 program is a totally immersive Spanish language study. My daughter Zari who is in Kindergarten was able to do this even though she isn't reading yet.  We worked on this about 2-3 days a week or when ever we had some free time. She did fairly well with the instructions and understanding what to do. I love that it teaches the basics.

The lessons are short (about 15 minutes), interactive, and held my daughter's attention. The stories, songs, and  activities are done all in Spanish. If you want to know what the stories and songs are in English you have to download the PDF files. They have vocabulary words and phrases that you are supposed to look out for and learn. They tell you what these mean in English within the program as well as the PDF files to print. We made flash cards with the words and phrases that were being taught.

The stories and songs are fun animated videos that are spoken in Spanish. I liked to read the stories/songs in English to my daughter after they were told in Spanish within the program so that my daughter understood better what was going on. Before I read the English version I would ask her what she thought was going on.

Zari enjoyed learning Spanish with Middlebury Interactive Languages. The lessons are not difficult and after Zari got the directions down on how to use the mouse and microphone within the program she had no trouble with it on her own. She enjoyed working through the online lessons and always was enthusiastic about coming back and doing more.

Middlebury Interactive Languages has a lot of great online foreign language courses that meet multiple grades and levels. I love that they have so many to choose from. I highly recommend this Spanish Middlebury Interactive Languages course to anyone that homeschools or supplements their child's public education at home. This is a wonderful homeschool foreign language course!

BUY IT
Elementary Spanish 1: Grades K-2 is $238 without teacher support and $588 with teacher support for both semesters. You can also find other courses of Middlebury Interactive Languages in Spanish, French, Chinese and German in elementary, middle and high school with course levels ranging from introductory through advanced.

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Good Fast Eats Cookbook Review

I received this book free to facilitate this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.

“Good Fast Eats” Summary:
Ready to eat in just under an hour, these recipes are healthy, delicious, and easy to make! With recipes like Eggs in Purgatory, Moo Shu Pork, and Cajun Spiced Cod, you won’t have to spend a fortune or a lot of time cooking or cleaning up. Your family will love these fresh one-pot meals perfectly balanced with amazing ingredients and spices. Cooking has never been easier or more satisfying!

About The Author:
Amy Flanigan is a food blogger at bellyfull.net, recipe developer, video maker, mommy, dog owner, baseball fan, lover of cookies, and constantly craving pie. She has been featured on Huffington Post, Calphalon (a cookware producer), Babble.com, BlogHer, Macy’s Culinary Council, Skinny Mom, and HerLife Magazine.

Our Thoughts:
The Good Fast Eats Cookbook has a great layout! It starts out with an introduction about why Amy wrote the book and some tips that help get food on the table without the fuss. It then gives a list of things needed to have on hand to make the recipes from within this book in the Stock Up section. After this it has the recipes in these categories: Chicken, Pork, Beef, Seafood, Meatless, Soup, and Sweets. Each recipe has a title, a description, serving size, preparation time, cook time, total time, ingredients, and directions. Each recipe comes with a mouthwatering photograph of the finished dish. At the end there are Cooking Measurement Equivalents, Metric Measurement Equivalents, an Index, Acknowledgements, and a bit About the Author.

This cookbook is great to have on hand when you need homemade dinner in a pinch. Most of these one-pot/pan/dish meals only take 15-30 minutes to complete. The recipes are hearty, comforting foods and delicious desserts that satisfy. The Beef Stroganoff looks very similar to my recipe. I am looking forward to trying the Sweet and Spicy Chicken Black Bean Enchiladas, Kielbasa and Cabbage Skillet, Greek Meatball Pockets with Tzatziki, Cranberry-Almond Chocolate Bark, & Ricotta Blintzes. All the recipes sound so yummy!

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DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received this cookbook for free to facilitate this review. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.

Defenders of the Family - LDS Book Review

I received this book free to facilitate this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.

“Defenders of the Family” Summary:

Defenders of the Family, assemble! God’s magnificent plan for us rests upon the strength of the family. In this engaging children’s book, discover the roles and teachings needed to unite your family, from devoted parents to extended members, all centered on the power of the gospel. Help your children see their families as they can be: incredible, empowered, eternal followers of Jesus.

Our Thoughts:
Defenders of the Family is a fun hardcover comic book/graphic novel written by Benjamin Hyrum White and illustrated by Jay Fontano. This 32 page book shows children and adults alike how to be defenders of the family and stand up for what we as Christian LDS members believe in. I see this book as a simplified version of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World". It also reminds me of a General Conference talk by Bonnie L. Oscarson where she encouraged Latter-day Saint woman to defend marriage, the divine roles of parents, and the sanctity of the home. This book goes into our foundational beliefs surrounding the family and what we should be doing to protect and strengthen this sacred entity.

We enjoyed the fun colorful illustrations. I loved how the defenders wore capes like superheroes and that there were a number of different races and family dynamics shown. Teela, my eight year old daughter, had no trouble at all in reading this book herself and the words get straight to the point.

I highly recommend this book that shows individuals how to be "Defenders of the Family". We all need this book, especially at this time when it seems that the family unit is only being ridiculed or ripped apart.

BUY IT


DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I received this book for free to facilitate this review. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review. Affiliate links may be in this posting. Thanks for supporting my blog.